Weekend Catchup: Horrible Stories Of Woe

My weekend was great...well, mostly. The ER thing was not so much.

Don't worry, let me 'splain...

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.


Princess Bride quotes make me happy

Let's see, Friday night...

Friday night was an unremarkable night. The Kid and I had a little dinner, watched a Vincent Price movie (The House On Haunted Hill), and went to bed.

Then I woke up at 2AM or so feeling like Inigo Montoya himself was stabbing away in there with all the rage he could muster for the 6-fingered man.

Now I'm not a pain wuss - remember that whole avocado fight I lost? - so believe me when I say the trip to the ER was only after realizing that not only was the pain not going anywhere, but that I may actually die of it at any time. (Panic attack GO!)

I'm fine. It was probably just acid reflux or something, which I've never had before and now have total respect for and fear of if that was, in fact, what it was.

Or it was my gall bladder, but I'm not inclined to think so based on my exhaustive Googling on the subject.

Or it was nothing. One never knows. Humans are weird.

Anyway, thanks go out to Melissa for driving up to get me (they gave me a shot of something fun and so I couldn't drive), and my apologies to The Child for scaring the bejesus out of her.

I scared me too.

Not exactly the most spectacular of mornings - it was pretty weird, in fact, but everyone survived.

Saturday afternoon we were supposed to go to a Dia De Los Muertos event, but lacking a car (it was still at the hospital) that didn't happen. Instead we went to The Kid's grampa's for one of his daughter-in-law's birthdays, and then The Child was off for her night of merriment, and I went to bug TR awhile.

Saturday night TR & I went on a ghost tour and...

Hm.

Well.

I won't say it was *bad* exactly, but it wasn't very ghostly. It was more a series of horrifying events detailed for us in a loud fashion. With spittle.

I know the guy really worked hard, and I will give him this - he knows his stuff! But...

Well, it'll make for good stories later, and it was definitely fun to dress up and look pretty, and plus 2 hours worth of holding hands with a cute boy on a bus doesn't suck at all, even if you *are* going deaf all the while and being...

What was the word? Irrigated?


Say it, don't spray it! (Also, cool photo)

Sunday morning we hit Dozens again because mmmm, Novo coffee, (and also Lucille's had a mega line again) and then it was back home to finish up some fantastic chili and head to a friend's for a Halloween gathering. It was very nice, and the chili was a big hit, and I got to see folks I don't see but every 6 weeks or so, all of whom are always glad to see me.

And that rocks.

Monday I had the day off (thus the late posting) to take The Kid to the airport. She's in Arizona with her grandparents there, doing homework (I hope) and helping them out a bit... wish I was there with her, since I miss my mom, but it's okay since she'll be coming out the week after Christmas! YAY.

Monday night the fabulous Pioneer Woman appeared at the Tattered Cover (conveniently located mere blocks from TR) and although I wasn't able to meet her in person it was cool to see her up close and personal!

Had I shown up about 3 hours in advance I might have had a shot at an autograph and the chance to thank her for inadvertently introducing me to the almost Mrs. Ms. Dandy, but by the time I got there it was standing room only, and I was at the back... there had to have been 500 people there!

I got her book (it was waiting for me when I got home), and let me tell you...

There will be cinnamon rolls. Soon.


Photo by P-Dub.

I hope you had a nice, ER-free weekend!

F-Word Friday: Finally!

No post yesterday, because of this:



That would be my backyard. That thing in the foreground there is the pile of uninterrupted snow that fell on my patio table.

The Kid suggested sticking a candle in the top and cutting a slice out, but it was also murrfurrin' cold out so...

No.

But yay! Snow day!

The Kid was thrilled, I made French Toast that *almost* rivaled the stuff at Dozens but not quite (since I lack a gas stove and griddle - it really makes a difference), we played with clay and watched dumb horror movies on SciFi (I refuse to use their new spelling because it's stupid), and the cats were all up in our business.

Well, Dea was because she's a noodge.


Please note the fact that the cat is asleep in this picture

The Kid is a sucker... she falls for the "kitty wants a hug" trick every time.

The "Finally" in F-Word Friday today comes from the fact that despite it looking a *lot* like Christmas yesterday, I have at last found my Halloween spirit.

Better late than never!

I may even torture TR by dressing up tomorrow and embarrassing him wherever we go.

And all that spirit is thanks to crafting, as usual.

Now granted, I just made some Candy Corn earrings...


Not as cute as the originals, but did they have cat involvement?

... but The Kid went CUHRAZY.

She made a bag of candy & the cutest pumpkins ever (her own designs) and we had fun making little skull beads which shall be used for *something*, but for now are adorning my little Halloween pile on the living room table, which also includes a candle holder sporting packing tape transfers I did last week.

God but I love the Craft: blog.


Tiggy helped with the size comparison... and please ignore the dust on the table thankyewveddymuch


That's a sucker, a Snickers bar and a giant Pixie Stick in that bag, I'll have you know

We had fun, can you tell?

Last but not least... The Kid's costume.

I give you...

Prom Queen Disaster.



Currently this is blood-free, but that's only because the blood packets are at her friend's house. Don't you just love the streaked mascara? Very dramatic.

Almost as dramatic as this shot:


Please note the Converse

Happy Halloween! Have fun and be safe!

WTF Wednesday - Groovy

James Lileks is hilarious.

He writes well, and is in fact an inspiration to me (my Princess Pantha posts being the best example of that influence I think).

His specialty is finding bits of antiquated American culture and...

Well...

Making fun of it for our amusement (and his).

He does so with reverence, though, and that's why I think his writing strikes such a chord. It's not like he actually *likes* the yellow plaid horror depicted in the 70's decorating photos he unearthed from God knows where, but he recognizes its cultural significance.


Hideous but noteworthy

I used to love flipping through old comic books and magazines at the resale shop I used to regularly haunt when I was about 10 looking for advertising. I often wondered what would happen if I were to send in one of the mail-in slips and request my very own X-Ray Specs or what have you...

I'd like to think there's a kind of time-warp mail service that those letters might enter, and that someday I'd get a curious package via USPS bearing a return address that no longer exists.

Yes, that *is* how my brain works, why are you looking at me like that?

Anyway.

I really don't remember how I stumbled across him, really, just one of those things that happens when you're link-following on the interwebs, but I do remember it being about 8 or 9 years ago and I'm still a regular visitor so that tells you something, huh? Websites come and go, but Lileks is forever. Or something.

The best stuff (in my person opinion) can be found in the Institute of Official Cheer section of his website... go look, but be prepared to spend some time. Make some coffee, get yourself comfortable and don't say I didn't warn you about the time suck factor!

Some of my very favorites (clickable!)...


I wish it still existed, I would go in a heartbeat


Did anyone really eat this stuff? Probably.


This had TR laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall right off his chair


Uh... sexy?

All this has inspired me... I think there might be a new theme in the offing...

Time Waster Wednesday.

Oh yeah.

Totally Random Tuesday: C'mon & Shake It Up Baby Now!

Wow, yesterday's post was...

Wordy.

Today, not so much, so it all balances out.

I did forget to mention one thing yesterday...

Twist & Shout, my new favorite store.

After high-tailing it out of the convention on Saturday, much earlier than anticipated due to the weirdness factor, TR was mid-errands and suggested a good place to hang while he finished up.

Oh my god.

Okay let me back up... I love records. *Real* records, the kind that take up lots of space and have to be handled delicately and so on.

Do I have a record player?

Well... sort of. It's a little plug-in kids player that The Kid borrowed from her aunt once and has yet to return to her. But that's not the point.

It's kind of like collecting, I don't know... airplanes. Sure, they might stay in their boxes, but you *have* them and they are glorious (especially when you get rare ones on the cheap) and you can carefully remove them from their boxes now and again to play with the detachable cockpits until you delicately replace them in their boxes again.

Records are like that for me... I can look at the liner notes, I can admire the album covers, I can look for the little messages etched into the inner wax ring... they're definitely a collectible thing.

And I can download the songs from iTunes if I want to hear them. The modern age is wondrous.

I also have attachment anxiety about them. I used to have some of the coolest records in existence (the *entire* Duran Duran catalog and some serious Smiths EPs - dont' judge me), and my ex-husband sold most of them out from under me about 15 years ago because they were "replaceable - have you heard of CDs?".

Jerk.

Anyway, Twist & Shout is, among other things, a record shop. I hadn't been in a record shop in probably 10 years, yet there I was, simultaneously flipping through albums, eyeballing the many fantastic toys lying around and wool-gathering about Record Shops I Have Known And Loved (oh Vintage Vinyl, I miss you), all while they played some sort of 40's Sinatra-type music over the sound system.

Bliss. I could spend hours in there.

It's probably good I didn't remember to add that yesterday, I probably would have hit some sort of character limit for single posts.

So! Your Randomness for the day... a Halloween Lolcat, because it's my blog and I can if I want to.

I'm mildly Halloweeny now. Only mildly, but still... it's probably the dark sky and bare trees and blowing leaves outside.

I need a pumpkin, STAT!



Clowns are terrifying. Clown dolls are even worse. *shudder*

Just look at that thing. You know it looks for the knives when you sleep, right?

If only it could move its thumbs, you'd have been toast long ago.

Weekend Catchup: A Let-Down Followed By A Pick-Me-Up

I know I write these Weekend Catchups mostly for me, just so I can go back through this 'ere blog and remember what I did last week (I'm getting old), but I hope you enjoy reading them, too!

Friday morning I had a lovely review (mostly) from my manager.

I say "mostly" because this year the faculty and staff of our department were given the chance to anonymously give reviews of our "customer service".

99% of these reviews consisted of folks talking about how they can't live without us down here in the office, but 1% (these are crap percentages... it was 2 people out of 30 or so reviews) used the opportunity to say that I'm crabby sometimes and that I "tend to be somewhat inflexible and use the rules to decide how to do things rather than try to do things that will accommodate the rules.".

In other words, I do my job and won't call the vendors they deal with for them when a billing problem arises on their credit cards, a task which if I did it for one person I'd have to do it for all 250 and which would then become my new job.

Yes, I'm horrible.

That little bit of unpleasantness was, however, canceled out by taking the afternoon off to bake cookies and putz around the house, courtesy of my manager's thankfullness in regard to a project I've been working on.

I made these...


Photo & recipe courtesy of Giggly Mama

...and Lo, They Were Good. They're more like little mini pumpkin bread blobs than cookies, especially after they've cooled, and I plan to make another batch this weekend because oh yeah.

Friday night I went by my friend/boss Wendi's house.

Wendi has a 7-year-old boy-child in her house, and he loves pirates, and is the proud owner of a brand new bunk bed.


Click to see the awesome pirate lights up close... also, that cat was the funniest creature I'd seen all day!

We spent the evening beating a large black piece of cloth into submission, or rather into 2 curtains which wrapped themselves around the bunk bed's bottom half, creating a PIRATE CAVE OMG.


With the lights off and just those awesome pirate-lights for illumination, this became the coolest room ever

To you and me, it's just a curtain, but to 7-year old boy child?

Bliss itself.


Think he likes it?

Saturday morning I headed out rather early for Mile-Hi Con 41 and...

And...

Hm.

Let's just say it wasn't what I was hoping for.

I knew last year that it wasn't the same as the conventions I'd attended before.

All the elements were there, the normal things you find at these shindigs...

People in carefully designed costumes displaying all the minutiae of the show/movie/genre they love best, a whole room full of fan art and paperback copies of 20-book-long series about dragons/elves/mages/etc., discussions going on here and there about the science behind sci-fi and whether or not Worf could kick Chewbacca's ass...

Girls who, just for example, have watched all of the Firefly episodes so often that they can almost curse in Chinese and who laugh maniacally every time they see little plastic dinosaurs.


Mine is an evil laugh!

The problem with these things is that they are a social event for a group of people that run in a very tight circle, mainly because they often can't find anyone who understands them out in the "mundane" world, and many if not most of the attendees at any one convention have probably been going to that event for years upon years or, and here's the key, are attending it with someone who *has* attended regularly and knows everyone.

This, at other cons, has been remedied easily on Friday night by a stroll on the party floor...

Mingling! Social networking! Strange drinks in test tubes! All the elements are there to make some new friends.

At Mile-Hi Con, however, it seems that unless you're in with the in-crowd, come with a group, or are an author with a reading, you're going to end up sitting at the back of a room listening to 3 or 4 people discuss Steam Punk and walk away feeling like you probably could have just stayed home watching Serenity.

Again.

It's not a *bad* convention, it's just not for me... I knew that after last year, and wasn't going to go this year, but I had promised to help with the kids stuff so I did.

Remember, I have volunteeritis, it couldn't be helped.

Luckily, I had dinner with TR to look forward to, and as soon as my shift was over, I headed to his place, and do you know what he had waiting for me?

A Firefly licence plate holder, that's what.


He even put it on for me

Who needs conventions when you have people who understand your weird Joss Whedon thing right here in the real world?

I don't think I'll bother with them again, honestly. It's too bad, really, the Chicago ones really were fun, The Kid and I would go with friends who had kids her age, and they would have sleepovers in the hotel rooms while we went out and mingled... here, it was just a chore.

I guess it was a fleeting thing.

At least it was free, but I'm glad TR didn't take me up on my offer to attend... I would have felt terrible! It was a selfish invitation, I'll admit... I think deep down I knew it was going to be a lackluster experience, and he tends to make things more entertaining.

Saturday night's dinner of Thai food made my tummy sad the next day... don't get me wrong, everything was flawless, but the hot soup was maybe a mistake. It was not hot as in "ow my membranes are gone now" but rather hot-due-to-being-loaded-with-chili-oil hot, and man did I pay for that one, but it was totally worth it.

I took the leftovers home with me and had the unexpected but delightful bonus of another chance to appreciate my kid, who when we shared the leftovers lamented the lack of good Thai food in Longmont.

Do most 13 year olds like curried chicken and satay-sauce-covered broccoli? I hope so.

Sunday was the laziest day I've had in awhile, and it was delightful... up at the crack of noon, a yummy breakfast featuring some fantastic coffee and bacony perfection, and then back to bed for a few hours to digest and watch the snow fly outside.

Then it was off to my friend Melissa's for chili and cornbread and conversation.

Perfection, and I didn't even have to cook... well, except for the cookies, but those were by choice.

How was your weekend?

F-Word Friday: Fantastico

New stuff on the wall! Woohoo!

He kept the Thriller-era Michael Jackson and added the video behind it. Nice!



You can see more in the Flickr set.

I love what he did to the side of the tool shed... you can't see it from the street, and I only noticed when I got out to take windshield-free shots.



Have a wonderful weekend! I hope you get some Halloween fun in. We all know I'm a total stick in the mud, but I think I'll at least make these. Yum.

Thrilling Thursday: Not Feelin' It

Okay, Halloween is in a week and still nothing - no tinge of excitement, no sudden urge to buy a costume or make popcorn balls...

It's so weird!

Is it just me? Are you not feeling the spirit of it this year either?

I barely put up any decorations, I haven't watched any horror movies, I haven't even bought any of those disgusting Brach's mallowcreme things I love so much.


Come to mama

What *is* it this year?

My poor kid, she loves it so much and her lame mom hasn't done anything to help this.

We bought one stinkin' pumpkin, and it was subsequently eaten by a squirrel.

I put up some lame tombstones out front but not even a *shred* of that irritating fake spiderweb stuff.

I didn't even put up any lights.

I'm going to have to throw a party next year or something. This is just pathetic.

How does this fit into Thrilling Thursday, you ask?

Um...

It doesn't.

But to make up for my off-theme post, here, have a few Halloween cartoons. They're *totally* thrilling!


This used to scare the pants off me.


One of my favorites... it's only part 1, but if you look on YouTube you can find the rest!


Of course.

WTF Wednesday - Reshoots

Okay I promise no political stuff today, except to say that the "100,000 call Tuesday" turned into an over 300,000 call day. That rocked.

Anyway, on to WTF Wednesday...my new favorite lazy blog post day. All I have to do is find fun stuff with which to distract you! (Yay grammar!)

My favorite (today)...

Re-cut movie trailers.

I won't even try to explain these to you, because really they speak for themselves - people get bored, and bored people screw around with editing software.

I'm looking at you, Ralph Lauren.

There are approximately 4 million of these, 3.9 million of which suck, but some are really well done and, because I love you, here are a couple for your viewing pleasure.


When you think about it, she was sort of terrifying.


Jack was just trying to HELP, don't you get it Wendy?!


Mashup! The Fugitive's Day Off. Oh yeah.

On that note...


Requiem For A Dream was a horrifying movie, but this was just awesome.

Plus, ya know, more Ferris. And shots of my beloved Chicago. Winner!

Last but not least today, here's a fun nugget I found through BoingBoing.net today...

"Unfortunate Cookie", a random document generator. It pulls up news headlines (and full stories) from decades past and you know I spent about half an hour before I had to make myself do something productive.

Weekend Catchup: Empanadas Have Consequences

A good weekend... quiet, nice weather, can't complain.

Today I'm feeling a little maudlin, but I'll spare you my whining and instead tell you about all the delicious food I ate on Saturday which was worth every minute of the subsequent indigestion.

It's much more fun to read than "wah wah poor me", especially when the whining is entirely unsubstantiated by reality.

Saturday we headed over to The Child's grampa's house for his housewarming party. His nearly-son-in-law is a chef, and as such was relegated the task of cooking up goodies for the party.

There were so many things I couldn't even detail them all for you, but my favorites were the butternut squash empanadas (oh goodness), the mini pecan pies (oh help me), and the balsamic-glazed stir-fried shrimps (served piping hot and gone in under 2 minutes).

Add to that a whole lot of fizzy lemonade, some seriously spicy cocktail sauce, and a queso dip that had everyone clustered around like zebras at a watering hole, and I was death-gripping the Pepto Saturday night.

It was entirely worth it.

In other news, I decided this weekend that I hate selling stuff; it sucks all the fun out of crafting.

I'll be zapping my Etsy account, however if you'd like something made for you, just say the word! It's much more fun for me, and you get something you picked yourself.

At least I know I have a few holiday gifts already taken care of.

Lucky for The Kid, that means she received the Halloween bowl I made and was so proud of. Lucky girl!

Last but not least, I *finally* dragged the photos on my camera out into the world... not much to speak of, but worth sharing. Enjoy!



This was October 10th. A bit early for this, in my humble opinion, but in true Colorado fashion it was gone the next day.



The Child's owl pumpkin. It has since been defaced by squirrels.

No seriously, de-faced. The face is gone! But the squirrels are happy.



The Halloween bowl... I wish it photographed better, the orange and black fabrics both have sparkles! Too cute, and Child is thrilled it's now hers-all-hers.



Blurry but still so cute... he wore that thing all day.

He is laying on a book (The Big Ass Book Of Crafts, to be precise), because if I put anything on the table, he will lay on it. It's just the arrangement we have.

Hope your weekend was lovely!

F-Word Friday: Fan Club

So there's this awesome dog named Max.

How awesome, you ask?

Well.

This was him as a puppy.


Could you resist? I don't think so.

At a year old he was chasing me around the tree whenever I visited, playing keepaway (his favorite game still, incidentally). Also, he had gotten even cuter.


Can you believe this was only 6 weeks later?

Then he got a baby sister, Greta.


He's an excellent big brother.

After an exciting cross-country move from Chicago to Tucson, he also found himself with a brother from another mother, Buster.


Three enormous dogs, and clean carpets. My parents are amazing.

But now? Now, he's a local hero!

From Wednesday's Marana (it's Tucson, only quieter) paper...


Click to see it better, but that says "Winner of the 2009 Pet Paparazzi Contest"

When he tilts his head, you just want to hug him. He'll let you, too.

Boy I hope he doesn't forget his roots, though... next thing you know, I'll be having to schedule an appointment to visit!

*psh* Celebrities.